mson mark your blame.
I speak to Britons.--Britons, then, behold
A man by Britons _snar'd_, and _seiz'd_, and _sold_!
And yet no British statute damns the deed,
Nor do the more than murd'rous villains bleed.

"O sons of freedom! equalize your laws,
Be all consistent, plead the Negro's cause;
That all the nations in your code may see
The British Negro, like the Briton, free.
But, should he supplicate your laws in vain,
To break, for ever, this disgraceful chain,
At least, let gentle usage so abate
The galling terrors of its passing state,
That he may share kind Heav'n's all social plan;
For, though no Briton, Mungo is--a man."

I may now add, that few theatrical pieces had a greater run than the
Padlock; and that this epilogue, which was attached to it soon after it
came out, procured a good deal of feeling for the unfortunate sufferers,
whose cause it was intended to serve.

Another coadjutor, to whom these cruel and wicked practices gave birth, was
Thomas Day, the celebrated author of Sandford and Merton, and whose virtues
were well known among those who had the happiness of his friendship. In the
year 1773 he published a poem, which he wrote expressly in behalf of the
oppressed Africans. He gave it the name of The Dying Negro. The preface to
it was written in an able manner by his friend counsellor Bicknell, who is
therefore to be ranked among the coadjutors in this great cause. The poem
was founded on a simple fact, which had taken place a year or two before. A
poor Negro had been seized in London, and forcibly put on board a ship,
where he destroyed himself, rather than return to the land of slavery. To
the poem is affixed a frontispiece, in which the Negro is represented. He
is made to stand in an attitude of the most earnest address to Heaven, in
the course of which, with the fatal dagger in his hand, he breaks forth in
the following words:

"To you this unpolluted blood I poor,
To you that spirit, which ye gave, restore."

This poem, which was the first ever written expressly on the subject, was
read extensively; and it added to the sympathy in favour of suffering
humanity, which was now beginning to show itself in the kingdom.

About this time the first edition of the Essay on Truth made its appearance
in the world. Dr. Beattie took an opportunity, in this work, of vindicating
the intellectual powers of the Africans from the aspersions of Hume, and of
condemning their sl